ColumnToday is Food Day so get your forks and knives out and start partying.

Despite the fact that I often roll my eyes at days, weeks and months that are dedicated to celebrating or building awareness for specific things – did you know it was recently National Chocolate Cupcake Day? Does a certain cupcake really need an entire day to itself? – one that we should all be able to get behind is Food Day, celebrated on October 24, 2011.

The gist of it? Real food.

Now that may sound like an oversimplified celebration, but when we think about it, how often do we truly honor real food? We spend plenty of time wrapping fancy fruits in artisanal prosciutto, sautéing chantrelles in organic, hand-churned butter with a touch of sea salt, and drinking cocktails with biodynamic gin infused with freshly grown herbs. Not that any of these things are bad – in all honesty, that list just made me hungry – but sometimes we need to take a step back and simplify, especially when we’re talking about improving the U.S. food system.

Sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, the day is based on 6 principles:

• Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods
• Support sustainable farms & limit subsidies to big agribusiness
• Expand access to food and alleviate hunger
• Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms
• Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids
• Support fair conditions for food and farm workers

There are events around the country, from Anchorage to Birmingham. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Food Policy Council is hosting a series of events throughout the day, including honey tasting, free farmers market apples and fruit picking. For Washington D.C. residents, follow along on Twitter as there are plenty of people taking part in events throughout the day, including food trucks.

But, as with any “day” we have to remember that, ultimately, it’s not about that day. Take part in Food Day as much as you want, but your real food system impact is going to be what you do tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

As David Katz, Director, Yale Prevention Research Center, wrote:

How can any day we put food into our bodies – or any day spent hungry and wishing we could put food into our bodies – not be Food Day?

On a routine basis, we overlook the profound importance of food. It is nothing less than the source of all construction material for the growing body of a child. Can any loving parent or grandparent truly sanction the construction of a child out of “junk?”

So how do you have an impact on a daily basis?

1. Buy local

We’ll say it once and we’ll say it again: buying from producers near where you live not only reduces the environmental and economic costs of transportation, but oftentimes it allows you to develop a personal connection with the person growing and making your food.

2. Eat together

Food is fun, so throw a dinner party. The quickest way to a man’s heart may be through his stomach, but that goes for both genders. We all need to eat and we all come together around food, no matter what our backgrounds. Serious change comes from influencing those around us, so stop being so serious with your food politics talk and just get your friends to eat.

3. Vote with your fork

Take it from Marion Nestle:

Vote with your fork. Every time you make a food choice, you are voting for the kind of food system you want. More voting for sustainable, local, and organic would be game changing. It doesn’t have to be 100% one way or the other, just more.

4. Support those who don’t have access to real food

Food deserts are a real thing, and so is access to healthy, fresh food. Make sure your local school is serving up fresh greens to its students, support food kitchens, get a community garden going. Do your part to ensure that everyone has access to things that are going to make them, and our food system as a whole, healthier.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: Anna Brones

ColumnFoodspotting’s top pick for a locavore in Brooklyn.

We launched our Locavore Guide to Brooklyn on Foodspotting this week. It’s full of all the local foodie hits in one of our favorite boroughs. Not following us on Foodspotting? You’re missing out on plenty of goodness.

Foodspotting sent us their own Brooklyn locavore find, from popular hotspot, Seersucker:

Carrot Soup, Purple Potatoes & Local Yogurt @ Seersucker Restaurant

In a borough known for its hip, locally-minded restaurants, foodspotter Ben H. recommends Seersucker’s simple carrot soup. Combining vegetable ingredients with a yogurt base, this soup is not only healthful, but makes for a filling, satisfying dish, too. -Amy Cao

Spotted by Ben H.

Check out the full guide and enjoy!

In Foodspotting Friday we highlight one of Foodspotting’s top picks from our Foodspotting guides. Be sure to check them out and tip us off to your own favorites in our Readers’ Picks guide. Want to start spotting food on your own? Join Foodspotting and take part in the food spotting revolution. It’s visual, it’s positive, it’s global and we are in love with it.

Images: David Berkowitz, Foodspotting

Column“Local” is the new “global” and fancy is put on the back burner for simpler, more laid back food.

It’s time to rejoice foodie undergroundists: fancy fusion with unintelligible names that make you feel self-conscious about your culinary prowess are out and simple, fun foods are back in.

You may have noticed the rise of hole-in-the-wall joints in your town, and the increasing use of farmers market produce in local menus, both out at restaurants and at home dinner parties, but our transition from haute cuisine to something a little more democratized is now official. According to the recent San Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurant Awards, local is the new global and these days we’re much more apt to opt for fun and informal food than anything with à la in the title.

Some of that success might be equated to the down economy, but fortunately it looks like the trend is sticking no matter what the size of people’s pocket books.

But the expansion of this more relaxed gastro scene does not seem to have slowed down as the economy has bounced back; quite the reverse in fact. Casual, fun dining, with a genuine focus on good and exciting food, is simply too successful.

If the study holds true, this means serious changes to the dining industry. Fancy, Michelin 5 star will always stick around, but an increased obsession with local and low-key could mean great things for budding culinary crafts-men and women. To get the opinion of the new generation of chefs, The Wall Street Journal asked acclaimed 25-year-old chef Stevie Parle of Dock Kitchen in London what he thought.

“People no longer enjoy themselves very much in posh restaurants, where it feels like you are eating with your grandfather. One good trend is that people no longer associate an expensive meal with a posh one. People can come to my restaurant and spend £80 a head on good wine and the like but they don’t expect it to look super fancy or all the dishes being miniature and perfectly laid out on the plate.”

Of course 20-somethings aren’t dictating the future of cuisine, but the growth in food interest from the younger generation is certainly having an impact. This crowd, not necessarily raised in the pantries of fine dining establishments, has a genuine love for good food, and semi-broke 20-somethings are just the type to come up with the innovation and ingenuity that the food world is currently craving.

There are plenty of 20-something foodie blogs out there, proving that it is possible to enjoy, and create good food, without a traditional training. Ultimately, they represent the growing group of “real people that love real food.”

And that’s just what might change the food industry.

It’s empowering to know that food change could come from the ground up. No longer dictated by big restaurants, it’s the smaller, more local operations that are making a difference and the rest of the world is taking notice.

Trading haute cuisine for fun cuisine doesn’t have to mean that the quality will change. Fun food isn’t all hot dogs and cupcakes, it’s simply more about dishes that don’t take themselves to seriously. Food for the sake of food, where a salad is a salad – preferably grown on the restaurant roof top – and ordering a burrito can be done with 0% guilt because the taco truck uses all organic, locally sourced ingredients.

Look out for food that continues to push the envelope, and if you think being a food lover is equated with pretentiousness, think again, because as it turns out, the most popular stuff coming out of the food world might just be coming out of your own backyard.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: Wootang01, Ed Yourdon, Anna Brones

ColumnCelebrate all things local with NYC’s Eat Drink Local Week.

Who says you need a bucolic setting to eat locally? Urban metropolises are showing that they too can provide sustenance for their inhabitants in new and creative ways, and this week New York City takes the crown.

Eat Drink Local Week (EDL) kicked off in New York City over the weekend, a collaboration between the Edible magazines of New York State and partners from the entire food chain. The idea is to get people all over the city excited about local food and during the 7-day festivities challenge them to take part in the “lip-smacking locavore lineup.”

Some of our favorite from the list of 20 challenges:

-Drink like a local! Swig libations from New York breweries and wineries. Bonus: make a farmy cocktail starring local herbs or produce.

-Cook your cast-offs! Think corn cob stock, sauteed beet tops, and pickled watermelon rinds.

-Shuck your own clams, mussels, scallops or oysters.

-Drink only local water—it’s called “tap,“ people.

EDL has also identified the seven ingredients of the week, and if you can manage to pull all of these into one recipe we’ll be highly impressed:

1. Strawberries
2. Peas
3. Chives and Green Garlic
4. Rhubarb
5. Lamb
6. Oysters
7. Yogurt

This list means that there are a whole lot of chic restaurants around town serving up prix fixe menus that put those ingredients to creative use, like Marinated Mackerel with Pickled Rhubarb, Cucumber, Fava Beans, and Watercress at Aquavit and Peas, Bacon, Sweet shrimp Risotto with Liberty Garden Arugula at Print.

And beyond just eating, there are plenty of chances to learn about food and drink, as well as interact with the people that make it.

• Bring Something Win Something: Take part in Union Square Greenmarket’s interactive campaign that encourages foraging, happening all week long.
• Watch Urban Roots: Check out the free screening of this film about city farming in Detroit, July 27th, 6:30 p.m.
• Meet Your Maker: Throw down with the good brewers at Brooklyn Brewery as well as other local food businesses, June 29th, 6-9 p.m.

EDL runs through Thursday, June 30, 2011. If you don’t live in New York City, these events make you wish you had a round-trip ticket there doesn’t it?

Want to check out some of our locavore faves in NYC? Check out our Locavore Guide to Manhattan on Foodspotting.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Edible Manhattan

I live in a foodie-centric town. Portland is known for its coffee snobbery, its food cart fetish and its farmers’ market obsession; most of us pride ourselves on eating well. That doesn’t mean that every meal is a well-planned feast of locally grown, freshly picked ingredients, but everyone seems to have a favorite food hot spot or quirky dish that they’re more than excited to talk about. So there has been a bit of local outrage in response to a recently published “Non-foodies Food Guide,” that appeared in the local daily the Oregonian, in which the first lines were pretty spiteful:

I am not a foodie.

To me, food is what you eat, not what you pray to.

Call them gourmands, connoisseurs, picky eaters, or just plain old snobs. Foodies blog, write and chat about pet restaurants, trends and chefs. They leave little room on their plates or in their hearts for fast food, family dining and the untrendy. And they can be pretty mean to some places we love.

The article goes on to mention a laundry list of local chains, from the 24-hour pie place Sharis to good ole family joint The Ole Spaghetti Factory, all of which the author cites as examples of un-hip, foodie turnoffs. This raises the questions: what exactly is a foodie?

Let’s start with the definition. Urban dictionary defines it as:

A person that spends a keen amount of attention and energy on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. A foodie is not necessarily a food snob, only enjoying delicacies and/or food items difficult to obtain and/or expensive foods; though, that is a variety of foodie.

For the sake of this argument, keep in mind that it’s just the obscure, edgy websites that define the term. The word is even listed in Merriam-Webster as a person having “an avid interest in the latest food fads.”

Despite the recent inclination to team the term “foodie” with “snob” there are a whole group of foodies out there that are simply concerned with where their food came from, how it was raised, and what’s being added to it to make the end product. In fact, if there’s one thing the underground food movement has taught us, it’s that local, sustainable, fresh fare is desirable, not just because it’s trendy but because it’s healthy and better for the environment.

Is being a foodie being a snob?

There’s an ongoing debate right now about food democracy. Los Angeles, one of the nation’s most abundant agricultural regions, is now taking a serious look at creating a regional food system that not only produces local, healthy food, but ensures that all residents get to take advantage of it.

The word “organic” has long been associated with higher prices, so much that the national media still questions whether it’s “worth the splurge.” As green blogger Mike Lieberman eloquently put it, “Organic Isn’t a Splurge, It’s My Healthcare.” In his well worded post he points out that questions like these highlight “how disconnected we have become from associating real food with health.” All you have to do is take a look at obesity rates from the CDC to understand the negative physical effect that this disconnect is having.

So is it snobbery or simply understanding what’s at stake when it comes to our health? Only consuming coffee from a particular cafe might seem like putting your nose in the air, but if you frequent the place because the owners are committed to selling fair trade coffee, the pastries are baked locally and they don’t give you plastic lids to your disposable cup unless you ask for one, then you’re probably there for a good reason.

Think about where your money goes

A common argument is “I don’t have the budget to eat that way.” Think being a foodie is reserved for the elite? Think again. In fact take a moment to reflect on all the luxury items that we have deemed necessary in our everyday lives. Flavor Magazine took on this exact question this summer and listed out the following:

Tobacco products, $100 designer jeans with holes already in the knees, KFC, soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup, Disney vacations, large-screen TVs, jarred baby food? America spends more on veterinary care for pets than the entire continent of Africa spends on medical care for humans.

And yet we don’t have enough money to make sure that we’re putting food into our bodies that’s not only going to sustain us but is also going to protect us from future illness? At the end of the day, there’s simply no excuse for eating well, it’s just all about choices and values. Is the new big screen tv more important to you than a weekly delivery of CSA produce? Fine, but don’t call me a snob because I don’t feel the same way. To quote Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms (yes, the one of Omnivore’s Dilemma fame), ”To suggest that advocating for such a change makes me an elitist is to disparage positive decision making and behavior. Indeed, if that’s elitism, I want it.”

What kind of society do we want to live in?

We’ve got a long way to go if we want to be sure that our country has good food available to the masses. Until consciously produced food doesn’t have to compete with subsidies and the quick and cheap petrochemical industry, food will continue to be unhealthier, externalizing the real costs in exchange for a lower price tag. We need personal and infrastructural change to ensure that we’re all eating well.

But in the meantime, we have to change how we think. Being committed to good food isn’t about status, it’s about health, both personal and environmental. If we stop promoting underground food movements, like urban gardens, bike powered compost pick up, and food carts that source all their food in a 100 mile radius, what kind of a world will we live in? One dominated by chain restaurants, high fructose corn syrup and obesity. Do you call that snobbery or sanity?

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: Anna Brones

In a state which owns the role as largest agricultural exporter in the country, how its largest city deals with food policy is important, not only for the state, but the nation as a whole. Such is the case with Los Angeles, California, a place where local produce runs abound. The problem is, it’s not only support for local food production that’s integral for regional food policy, but it’s the distribution of it.

According to the 2005 LA County Health Survey, only 14.6 percent of adults eat over five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Add that to a population over half (55.5 percent) of which is either obese or overweight, and it’s easy to posit the correlation between good food and improved health.

This week the Los Angeles Food Policy Task Force, established last year by the L.A. Board of Public Works, released a its report, “Good Food for All Agenda: Creating a New Regional Food System for Los Angeles.” The report focuses not only environmental concerns related to the LA food system, but also the political and social side of things. With studies showing that there is a direct correlation between income and health, these are the issues that local, and national, leaders have to start taking a serious look at, and it’s good to see one of the nation’s most abundant agricultural regions starting to do so.

In the land of plenty, the report paints a grim picture of the reality for many LA residents:

A block from backyard vegetable gardens whose vitality could make you gasp, displays of cheap-calorie, high-profit, chemical-laden snacks, and vivid, sugary sodas all but crowd out the produce sections of neighborhood markets. Children eat prepackaged school lunches designed to ease the problems of distribution rather than nutrition. Billions of consumer dollars that could go towards sustainable, fairly priced locally grown food goes out of the region and out of the country. Improbably, even here, many thousands of Angeleno families go hungry each day.

Local food can’t just be a trend or a movement, it has to be practical, affordable and accessible, and when we’re talking about environmental, social and political issues, this is something that all cities across the country should be considering.

The report also calls for the city to establish a Good Food council, which would aid in connecting the dots between all the groups within the city that are doing work that’s related; focusing on local food means strengthening the community around it. University researchers can work with soup kitchens and activists can work with industry professionals.

You can read the full report here.

Image: djjewelz

The point of Foodie Underground is to take a look at all things related to the underground food movement, but sometimes all those cool, avant-garde, underground things start to add up and lead to more than just a small movement; they start to become mainstream.

Food carts can be found in smaller cities that don’t start with words like “San” and “New,” a town without a farmers’ market is getting harder to find, and around the country people are starting to think about what the word “organic” really means. They may have started as underground trends, but the fact that more people are paying attention to what they eat and where it comes from is a good thing.

Proof? The National Restaurant Association surveyed almost 2,000 chefs to find out what they think the trends of 2010 will be come year’s end, and the answer wasn’t bacon. At the top of the list was locally grown produce, with 88 percent of the chefs naming it a hot trend. Some of the other trends that ranked highly in various categories were restaurants with on-site gardens, environmentally friendly kitchen equipment, locally produced wine and beer, and organic produce.

Where does that put the underground food movement? In a good spot. It means that all the efforts that go into sourcing food locally, brewing craft beers, supporting community gardens, and all the other things that conscious foodies around the country partake in on a regular basis are having a significant positive impact.

The work comes in turning these trends into culinary norms; until the general population comes to expect locally sourced produce whenever possible, and puts a value on organic, fresh food, then we’ve still got plenty of hours to put in supporting the ongoing underground movement.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: bokchoi-snowpea

You peruse the stands, ogle over fresh berries, contemplate which goat cheese to buy, and smile contentedly as you walk away from the flurry of farmers and produce, full basket in hand. But is that local, organic, shopping induced feeling of happiness all a sham?

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that two large grocery store chains in the Northwest were faking their own farmers’ markets to draw in customers. Back in June, Safeway started posting “Farmers’ Market” signs above produce displays in front of their stores, only to receive a backlash from the local farming community which ultimately resulted in the store changing the signs to say “Outdoor Market.”

Over Labor Day Weekend, Albertsons did a similar thing, featuring their own “Farmers’ Market” signs next to their produce sections at over 200 stores. Has the term “farmers’ market” become the new greenwashing?

Although local farmers groups support chain stores selling local goods, farmers’ market are about more than just regional produce. True farmers’ markets provide the opportunity to buy freshly harvested goods directly from the hands that grew it – a far cry from regional apples that spent days in a truck and are sampled by a grocery store employee who has a hard time telling the difference between a Braeburn and a Fuji.

And it’s not just the Northwest. People are faking their farmers’ markets all over the country. In Los Angeles, NBC did an undercover investigation on local vendors and found that some of them were selling produce that the farmers hadn’t even grown themselves, in one vendor’s case, from Mexico.

It’s all a reminder that we can never take anything in the food industry for granted; talk to your farmer and know exactly where your food comes from.

Image: Natalie Maynor

The Pacific Northwest has an obsession with local food; an obsession that started long before eating local became a trend. With ample orchards, farms, vineyards and a healthy coastline the region is known for its year-round bounty, and in an area that’s so rich in all kinds of food, working with the local community to put food on the table is not only a sustainable choice, but an economic one. A choice that ultimately builds community and makes the region stronger.

But with so many farmers, fishermen and foodies, how does one keep track of all the options? Food Hub might just be the answer.

Launched by Portland-based non-profit Ecotrust, Food Hub combines the functionalities of a social network with smart marketing strategies that put an emphasis on local, allowing food service professionals who want to buy local food to easily access growers and processors that have exactly what they’re looking for. In fact, Ecotrust’s vice-president of food and farms Deborah Kane went as far as to call it “the Facebook of local food, or the Match.com for food buyers and food sellers.”

Although focused on the professional side of the food industry – the website can only be accessed by regional food buyers and sellers – Food Hub will have a very direct effect on Northwest consumers, who will quickly reap the benefits. As of last month the site had over 600 members, and that included buyers for not only restaurants, but schools, hospitals and resorts.

Supported by various foundations and individuals, Ecotrust also worked closely with the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Washington State Department of Agriculture to develop Food Hub, proof that institutions can be visionaries when it comes to food policy.

While many of us foodies have made a conscious effort to buy local and support the food culture of the regions that we live in, large scale alimentary change has to be teamed with infrastructural shifts, and if it’s successful in the coming months, Food Hub could easily become that model.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: Anna Brones

I’m guilty as charged when it comes to a standard farmers’ market routine; my Saturday morning market run always includes a visit to my egg guy, then my favorite stand for whatever greens are in season, and then a swing by the Irish man who runs a smoked salmon stand. After that I pick up a container of plain spreadable chevre at Fraga Farm and finally cruise by the New Cascadia booth for some gluten-free seed bread. Every. Single. Weekend. This kind of a routine certainly never feels like a rut, but this week marks National Farmers’ Market Week, and even the most seasoned of farmers’ market visitors sometimes need some new inspiration for enjoying all that markets have to offer.

National Farmers’ Market Week kicked off yesterday and runs through August 7. This bodes well for promoting healthy, local and sustainable food, even in more conventional areas that are new to the farmers market trend, which means if you haven’t made it out to a farmers’ market yet this season, it’s about time! Here are just a few ways you can celebrate.

1. Find a new market

Feel like you need to hit the refresh button and see some new stands and farmers? The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a search engine that lets you track down markets geographically. This is also a great way to track down markets to visit when you’re out of town for the weekend and visiting a new city.

2. Take the kids

Making a trip to the farmers’ market a family event is just another step in creating food savvy, local-loving kids.

3. Get creative

If you’re a frequent market-goer like myself, why not try cooking-up some seasonal dishes that are new and exciting? Check out what’s local and in season and then pick a few items that don’t normally make it into your market basket.

4. Throw a party

Plan a farmers’ market themed potluck and require your guests to bring dishes made solely from market produce. Encourage them to bring recipes and you might just end up with a few new seasonal recipes favorites.

5. Take pictures

The only thing better than shopping at farmers’ markets is taking pictures at farmers’ market; take your camera with you on your next visit and try to capture just what makes your local farmers market special. To celebrate National Farmers Market Week, I’m bringing you a selection of my favorite Portland farmers’ market photos from this season. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Images: Anna Brones